


visiting hours

by outruntheavalanche



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hospitals, Loss, Minor canonical character death, Not Beta Read, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:16:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5659225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/pseuds/outruntheavalanche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Poe Dameron has a damn hard time thinking of anyplace he hates more than the medbay.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	visiting hours

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t read any of the new tie-in novels or comics. All my research came from Wookieepedia. Everything about Poe’s mother/her funeral is pure speculation on my part. And, yes, the desert flowers were from Rey. If you want, you can consider this a pre-pre-Finn/Rey or pre-pre-OT3 thing.
> 
> This was meant to be written for someone's prompt on [](http://fandom-stocking.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**fandom_stocking**](http://fandom-stocking.dreamwidth.org/), but it veered away from the prompter's request, so. Oops.

Poe Dameron has a damn hard time thinking of anyplace he hates more than the medbay. The sterile white walls, the chemical smell burning in his nose and throat, the monotonous buzzing and beeping droning in his ears—it all just makes him feel like he’s eight years old again, and he’s—

Poe realizes he’s standing in Finn’s room when the acrid smell of antiseptic hits the back of his throat. It pinches his sinuses and he gags on it, choking and coughing. He’s never forgotten the smell, not after all these years. 

The medidroid tending to Finn’s bedside shoots him what probably would be a disapproving look, if hunks of metal and wires could give disapproving looks. It tugs a blanket up to Finn’s chin and tucks it around him.

[Commander Poe Dameron!] The droid’s tinny voice startles him out of his coughing fit. [We did not recall your name on any previous visitor’s logs,] it tells him, as it lifts a—hand?—an apparatus of some sort and places it over Finn’s forehead. [We would have expected you to stop by earlier. The young Jedi apprentice, Miss Rey, had been asking about you. She seemed disheartened to hear you had not yet been by to visit Mister Finn.]

Guilt claws its way up Poe’s chest, into his throat. How could he explain to a droid that he was a _coward_? That the sounds and smells of a medbay could still shake him out of even the deepest, darkest night’s sleep? 

“I—I wasn’t well,” Poe explains, taking a tentative step into the room, and then another. He wishes he’d brought BB-8 with him. It’s much easier when the droid is by his side, gently pressing into the backs of his knees, nudging him forward. 

The medidroid rolls over to Poe and puts its hand-thing over Poe’s forehead. The cool metal claws dig gently into Poe's forehead, and he finds it disconcerting enough that he gently twists out from under its hand. [Your internal temperature is a bit high, and your heartrate has elevated,] the droid says, [but nothing that would indicate—]

Poe gently brushes its arm away. “I’m fine now. I just didn’t want to make things worse,” he says, which isn’t exactly a lie. “Didn’t want to give him anything he can’t fight off right now.”

The droid seems to accept his explanations—lies and half-truths—and lets Poe pass. He drags a wooden stool over to Finn’s bedside and lets his eyes flick to a small table next to his bed. Someone’s brought a vase with three desert flowers, their thick petals dusted with a fine layer of sand. Poe touches one; the petal wilts and drifts to the shiny _sterile_ stainless steel tabletop. He picks up the petal—soft and velvety to his touch—and pockets it.

After a few long minutes of impossibly loud, cacophonous silence—Poe hears nothing except beeping, droning, the mechanical hiss of oxygen as a machine and tubes cycle it through Finn’s lungs for him—he coughs gently and finally brings himself to speak.

“Hey, buddy.”

Finn doesn’t stir, though Poe hadn't been expecting him to. The only movement is the stuttering rise and fall of Finn's chest, spurred on by the machines. 

Poe’s eyes sting and his own chest aches. Finn will wake up, he _knows_ this, feels this as deeply as if the Force itself had whispered the words in his ear and burned them into his skin like a brand. When he reaches down and closes a hand over one of Finn’s cool, dry hands, he can detect just the hint of warmth. 

He remembers being eight years old, left without a mother. Remembers not even getting a chance to hold her hand before she received a hero’s funeral, covered in a shroud but for her pale, bloodless face, her medals pinned to her chest. He remembers grasping, reaching for his father’s hand as they stood side by side and watched flames lick at his mother’s shroud-covered body. Poe will never forget the crackling and snapping of twigs and brush as they were devoured by the flames, nor the heat on his cheeks, nor the sting in his eyes from the smoke.

Poe remembers the flames that reached for the stars, and he remembers wishing, hoping.

Poe holds tightly onto Finn’s hand and he is grateful. Grateful that Finn survived. Grateful that he’s been given this chance. 

Poe may not have gotten a chance to say goodbye to his mother, but he will be here to say “hello” when Finn wakes.


End file.
